Airtable link previews in Slack

When sharing an Airtable link in Slack we've made it possible to preview that link in the Slack conversation. This can help you to convey key information to team members and colleagues throughout your organization right in Slack. 

Overview

As a prerequisite, it's important to understand what Airtable URLs and IDs are. If that is a new concept for you, then check out this support article to learn more. 

The following types of Airtable links can be previewed in Slack:

• Base URLs - Preview just the base's name with a hyperlink to "Open in Airtable"
• Table URLs - Everything in base URL previews. Additionally, the table name will be shown.
• View URLs - Everything in table URL previews. Additionally, the view's name as well as the view type and the number of records in the view with a hyperlink to "Open in Airtable" will be shown.
• Record URLs - Everything in view URL previews. Additionally, up to 10 fields can be previewed. The first 10 fields in the view the record link is being shared from will be shown.
• Base share links - Preview the base name along with a hyperlink to the base being shared.
• View share links - Preview the view name and the number of records in the view along with a link to the view being shared.
• Invite links - Preview the name of the base being shared along with an "Accept" invite hyperlink

We will only generate link previews when the Slack user is authorized to access the Airtable content being shared. This will depend upon a user's permissions and/or settings chosen in view or base share links.

Connecting accounts

If you have not previously connected your Slack account with Airtable, then a prompt will appear that asks you to allow Airtable to integrate with your slack account. The prompt will look something like this:

Additionally, this feature required us to make some changes to our Slack app. For this reason, if you have previously authorized the Airtable Slack app, you will have to reauthorize the Airtable Slack app in order to get access to link unfurling. You may need to reach out to your IT department for help with this.

Scopes

Airtable only relies on a few API scopes from Slack in order to allow this feature to work.

For more information on Slack's scopes we recommend checking out their support documentation here. 

FAQs

What about link previews for MS Teams (and other platforms)?

At the moment, we are only supporting link previews (unfurling) for Slack. However, we may consider adding functionality for other messaging services down the road.